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VICTORIA — The day Carly Fraser turned 19, the troubled teen lost whatever foster care supports had helped her battle years of mental illness and addiction. Twenty hours after her birthday, in a moment of despair, she threw herself off the Lions Gate Bridge. Her body was never found.

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At least three Canadian provinces improved support in 2014 for youth aging out of the foster care system, an issue that is gaining national attention because of concerns about the dire futures for these vulnerable young people. But even though The Sun published a series of stories in February about what happens to these youth after losing government care at age 19, there has been a smaller groundswell of activity in B.C.

Imagine telling your children on their 19th birthdays that they must leave the family home, will receive no more financial or emotional support, and are on their own to figure out how to make money or go to school. That is the reality for 700 youths every year in B.C. — foster children raised by the Ministry for Children and Families who, on their 19th birthdays, lose all the supports on which they had come to rely.

Kali Rufus is a poet, who has been documenting his fragile yet resilient life stanza by stanza. On a day when he hasn’t yet injected his “bestest friend,” crystal meth, he speaks thoughtfully and lucidly about his writing and the inspiration it gives to himself and, hopefully, to other youth.

In a province where the high school graduation rate is better than 80 per cent, foster children are stark exceptions. In the last five years, an average of just 32 per cent of kids in care have graduated from Grade 12 by their 19th birthday, the age at which government support abruptly ends.

In 2008, then-U.S. President George W. Bush pledged federal money to all states that would extend foster care to age 21, a move that was heralded as “the most significant child welfare reform legislation in more than a decade.” Since than, at least 25 states have expanded support for these vulnerable children. In Illinois, one of the first states to do so, academic studies have found lengthening care until 21 (compared to states that did not) led to drastic decreases in homelessness, teenage pregnancy and unemployment, and vast improvements in high school and post-secondary achievements.

Young people age out of care at the age of 19 in British Columbia and for many, that’s young. That’s not because they’re just 19, but because the services that they’re using when they’re in care don’t exist for them beyond the age of 19.

Ashley Crossan has a bedroom in a non-profit housing project, and is determined to finish high school and find a job. This may not initially sound like the plot of a success story, but it is, compared to the outcomes for many other former foster children.

A two-term Liberal MLA who chaired a government youth committee believes her former colleagues in Victoria should boost the age of support for foster children beyond the age of 19. “I believe the government ought to, at a minimum, consider raising the age of care to 21 years, as has been done in Ontario, as well as to consider providing a range of co-ordinated supports for those aged 21-25 years,” Joan McIntyre wrote in a letter to The Vancouver Sun in response to the paper’s recent six-part series on foster care.

Kali Rufus, 21, is a former foster child who graduated from high school but, when he lost all MCFD support just before his 19th birthday, has faced challenges in his life. He believes his life would have turned out differently if the government supported former foster kids like him for a few more years, the way parents still provide financial assistance and advice to their children into their 20s. Day 2 - Aging Out Series - a six-part series on turning 19 and aging out of foster care.

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